Feminism

My friend who started #500WordsAbout asked folks to write a post on empathy, kindness, and respect to go along with her t-shirt release (proceeds go to local Seattle charities, and there’s kids sizes!). At the same time, another friend asked an interesting question with his 500 words, and I’ve had a third issue on my mind lately, which I think are all going to neatly tie together so here we go!

Sarah Ditum had a wonderful article published in the New Statesman today that really brought home just how terrifying the regression of reproductive rights is for me. Roe vs Wade was argued a decade before my birth; I’ve never known a time when I didn’t have at least lip-service to the right to decide whether I wanted to continue a pregnancy or not. I was barely of voting age the last time the Global Gag Order was reinstated.

This week has been… tricky so far but I don’t really want to talk about it. Instead, lets talk about how Marvel put out a new Hawkeye comic starring the one, the only, Kate Bishop! I’ve been super excited about this coming out for the month or so that I’ve known it was coming. Right up until yesterday, when I read Marvel’s blurb about it.
Even cute! Between the “adorable” on the cover, and the phrase “the chick who puts the hawk in Hawkeye”, I was a little concerned that the book would be more eye-candy ridiculous than an actual story with meat on it.

Shadow of Mordor has a serious lady problem. The game is missing having much in the way of lady characters at all, and when they do, they’re dissatisfying, to say the least. As a way to avoid doing a lot of explaining, here’s an article about the representation of women in the game, and here’s one discussing what they did about it.
So, here’s where we are. We have a game where the first woman you see is a character who only exists to be brutally murdered on-screen along with her child, as a way to motivate the main character.

I wanted to write a post about feminism in tech. I wanted to talk about how you, my overwhelmingly male friends and co-workers, can help make my and other women’s lives easier, and how you may be making our lives harder without knowing it. I wrote out a HUGE post, about my credentials as a woman and a software professional, about what I see as the problems that a woman in tech faces, and about what kinds of things you can do to help.

So, I don’t drink anymore, more or less. I had a couple of whiskey and cokes at a concert last year, and that’s it for the last 2 or 3 years. I’ve got some varied reasons for that, medications, formative experiences as a kid and later as an adult, varying states of mental health, and a general philosophy that I have just as much fun without drinking.
Normally this would not be a problem, except I’m a tech professional.

I hit a milestone today. I got called a whore (or was it slut?…) on the internet. It’s really been a long time coming. I have been having all these OPINIONS on THINGS, and talking about feminism on the internet and all. Getting uppity. Oddly, that wasn’t got me into trouble. What did, however, was declaring I hated a song on the radio. I may have called it the worst song evar, complete with misspelling.

I wrote this in response to a friend in a private community of my close college friends who tried to explain that the women in question aren’t “true feminists” and that they’re frauds who in some way deserve everything that is happening now. I don’t expect it to change his mind, but hopefully it will make the rest of our social circle think more. It’s certainly made me think more about being in that social circle anymore.

That was my response when I enjoyed the second of TWO ridiculous articles that appeared on ESPN’s site directed at women, espnw.com. The first was a guide to drafting for fantasy football. For those who may not know, fantasy sports generally involve you collecting players from around the league onto your team and earning points based on the individual performance of those players. It’s a fun way to stay engaged in the rest of the league, and adds excitement to games where your home team isn’t a participant, but your fantasy team may have members.

I feel so upset that I have had to use those 4 words so much lately. It seems like it should be simple. Be Kind. Two words and you have a pretty decent guide to life. Not perfect, because nothing ever is. Situations are often complex, but for the most part if you are about to do something and you think to yourself “is this kind?” and can answer “yes” then you’re probably doing okay.